The Ying And Yang Of Physical Training

 

It's easy to get caught up in the idea that doing some form of hardcore training will get you the best results. The truth is, in certain cases it's true but from a certain point of view. Going completely nuts in a training session whether it's for 20 minutes or an hour, has its perks but only if you understand the awareness of what needs to be done after and how you apply the recovery process so you can build muscle. 

There's also the polar opposite of this in the sense where if you have a fear of going hardcore and all you do is "soft" stuff that doesn't do much for you, your progress is going to be unsuccessful in that regard. What can you do about this? You learn to find a balance, a Ying & Yang so do speak. It's the understanding of doing something crazy but being aware that you can have sessions as well that benefit your body's ability to recover and adapt from the breakdowns.

It's a learned flow state of being able to charge into battle in your training but knowing you don't need to do it all the time. If you do one or the other too frequently, it's going to bite you in the ass and by that I mean, you're either going to get injured more often or your body and mind just won't have the juice needed to test yourself. I've done enough sessions that were rough as hell yet other sessions that looks like something out of Tai Chi or something to know that it becomes a balance game and only you can figure out how your body responds to the "trauma" along with being "passive" in your journey. 

I train every single day for many reasons but in the last couple years, I've been relearning how to balance myself with testing my capabilities and going into a state that seem like I don't get anything done but getting more than what the eye sees. Often I train multiple times a day doing little things or multiple workouts that last 30 minutes or more that keep me going. Training to control your movements not from a forced aspect but an entity of effortlessness even though it's not easily done by any stretch. You can go into a gym and do some insane stuff for a period, in the same day do something that is less intense but keeps you moving. It's the blending with intent that keeps you into that flow state. 

Now, not everyone is capable to go so hard they can't do anything else the rest of the day, not because they're not trained that way but why? What's the purpose of training so hard you can't move almost at all but think you can go another set of rounds just as crazy? That's geared for more of those in the pros or world-class level for specific purposes. In reality, very few can withstand what it takes to be world-class. If you took a well trained sprinter who has been trained to take trauma and the type of training that pits him at the Olympic level and put a guy who's never trained in his life let alone done a sprint and put him on the same type of regimen....That guy would be injured severely within a week or even the first day or worse and you expect him to keep showing up? That's where some people's minds go, they believe they can keep up with routines that are found in magazines and on youtube and find out the hard way that your ego could get you killed just out of sheer stupidity. There's no balance or progressive steps. 

This isn't about learning one thing or another, it's learning how to use both sides of the coin effectively and with mindful awareness that your body is a very powerful tool and can do extraordinary things but not at the expense of doing things that can either easily put you in the hospital or have no ambition and just go through the motions without any real intent or purpose. There are some people who will tell you that going hard everyday is the true key and they can be very convincing because they have mastered that level of manipulating into thinking that you either go hard no matter what or die trying. This is a dangerous and inhumane mentality in the sense where you're telling people without deliberately saying it to purposely injure themselves or torture themselves into pain. It's that "No pain, no gain" level of stupidity that hinders progress more than doing something that will have you gaining. Not to mention it comes from those who believe losing 132 lbs in less than 8 weeks is healthy when here on earth, that could be a death sentence. 

Find your balance and be in a flow that channels your energy regardless if you train like a maniac or utilize recovery training. It's a process but when you can flip that switch so do speak and go through life outside of training, things will have a clearer form of what is useful and what isn't. There are ways to learn this, it's a practice not many have figured out yet and some can pick up on it right away, others it can take a little time but it's beyond worth the effort that you can make progress at a much faster rate instead of looking at one thing or another and keeping them separate. 

Be amazingly awesome and flow with purpose.   

The Challenge Of Everyday Fitness

    One of the most challenging things in life is to do something everyday; in this case exercise. The biggest issue is being burnt out and whether you have time to get what you want done. That's why most trainers and general fitness standards say do this three times a week or that for a day and take a day off and repeat. It's not for everyone and certain people have certain goals and it doesn't always require training everyday. How do I know this, it's because I live this challenge every single day and have been since Aug. 1^st, 2005.

 
    The way I look at it and observed my own experiences and others is that people believe to train is to train hard all the time, beat your record the next day or go a little harder the next workout but truth to be told, your body can handle only so much until something either bad happens or an injury occurs (I know it's happened to me on an occasion). I love to bust my ass and just go for the raw beating of a record set or reps but I also feel like chilling out on some days and do what I call "easy" workouts. I put that in quotes because it's not always easy but it's not enough to where I'm not pushing my body but recovering and letting myself take a small break. I've put myself through some of the toughest workouts you can imagine but I also let myself recover by stretching, meditate and healing myself both in and out.

 
    I love training but I will tell you it doesn't get easier. The more days in a row you train, the harder it is to keep going but if you use your imagination and take a few days at times doing only 5 min. of exercise it becomes more fun. Not many people can say they workout and have done so every single day for nearly 9 years in a row. My secret is not always willpower or fighting myself to do something, it's to listen to my body and let my mind guide me. I don't always know what I'll be doing on some days so it could be on a whim and want to do push-ups or hanstands and that's it. Some days (like a lot lately) I do DDP Yoga or I go out for a few sprints 2-3 times during the week and stretch my body on the weekends. It's all about what you want to do. You don't need 30 minutes of exercise everyday and you don't always need to lift all the time; be resourceful and if you need to take a break, do a couple minutes of just standing and meditate it still counts.

 
    The day I took my vow to train everyday without fail was the best decision I've ever made in my life. I didn't tell myself to train for a month straight to start or go a whole year, I just took it one day at a time. Do something different on some days, change the pace a bit, don't worry so much if you can't do the same things everyday, it can get boring so use your brain. It has not just become a thing for me, it's given me strength I never knew I had, it has built my mind to be creative to challenge the norm and create something out of my imagination. I've said this before, when something interesting hits me, I'm like Walt Disney my imagination scorches with burning ideas and how it can help achieve my goals. You have your own goals but do a little something everyday one day at a time even for 30 seconds; it puts a whole new meaning to the words stamina and endurance.

 
Be awesome everyone and have fun wherever you are.

Hard Training= Harder Rest

Every workout should be a small challenge but I believe at least once work a week or a month should be one of the toughest you’ve ever put yourself through. Bust your ass for the exercises that give you the best results and hit them hard with a vengeance.

 Resting is a major factor in your training because rest means recovery and you learn to give your body its time to relax. When I mean rest I don’t always mean between sets, I mean by sleep and letting the body recover overnight. After a hard and brutal session, you’d want to get a good night’s rest which builds hormone levels and builds your metabolic state.

 If there was ever a day I needed to Rest more than anything else was one of the most brutal days of my life. I spent the morning and early afternoon training on hand balancing and even doing some Rock Climbing which I’ve never done in my life. After that tough part of the day, I went to the gym with my sister and her husband and did some brutal lifts with crazy heavy dumbbells, including low reps on the pulldowns up to 270 lbs. and went for reps at the pec deck which maxed at 240 lbs. Pull-ups were added in and plenty of stretching. After the gym, jumped in the pool and did some swimming to cool down my body after a brutal day of training. Can you say insane?

 At the Rock Climbing gym I got to train alongside The Duke and The Renaissance Man a.k.a Tyler Bramlett and Logan Christopher. These 2 were going at it with Handstands, Climbing and various holds that need to be seen to believe. I’ve had a few sessions with these bad asses before and every time I train with them there’s some thing magical in the air.

 When you train this hard or anything hardcore at all, it’s very important you let your body heal and I don’t mean sitting on the couch all day. Sleep and let the body heal itself, eat plenty of natural foods to give your body the nutrients for fast recovery and do little exercises here and there to keep your blood flowing and exercise the joints to keep from injury. Your body adapts to different progressions in whatever you’re doing and it’s not necessary to go hard every day, some of that can lead to injury. Resting your body should be equaled to the training itself as in terms of ratio and various workouts.

Can You Become Your Own Avenger? Pt. 4

We've read about superheroes since the days of David vs. Goliath to the powers of Sampson and the strength of Milo. In the modern age of comic books, there are superheroes and villains in every page front to back with stories of victory, struggle, love, hate, diversity and learning the responsibilities of having super powers. Our heroes come and go and some live on in legend. Some work as individuals and some work as a team, however at rare times you'll find our most favorites work as a unit and to assemble the ultimate team.

In my opinion if you are hardcore trainer or like staying in shape, its not just a hobby, its a lifestyle. For some, fitness is like a second language, we are so consumed by it we don't think twice about it yet some take it to extremes that's out of their control, they feel its life or death if they don't do a workout, kind of like a superhero who's so consumed by their gifts that they forget what is more important and what makes them who they are. Training can be used in a lot of ways. It's very easy to go caught up in it that you don't realize the consequences but its very difficult to create consistent progress and learn how your body works on certain cycles.

Being strong and powerful is very rewarding but it does come with a price. You don't get strong overnight and not feel it the next day, that's the reality. You can have fun in your training and find out how good it feels which is a good price to pay but overall to keep up your what you love, you must take things in stride and work hard to reach your goals whatever they may be.

Look at some of our favorite superheroes like Batman or Thor, one's a god and the other is mortal with a superhuman mind and the fighting spirit of a warrior but what do they have in common? They both use what they have to keep those from harm but they both have paid a price individually. Remember that price you pay for getting so consumed in what you do that you end up suffering consequences? Take it from Thor, he's a god among men yet he got so consumed at being a warrior and battling everything he went up against that he forgot who he really was for a while and lost his power for a period of time.

Batman feels he has no choice because he wanted to Avenge his parents death that it took over his ability to find what's really important and that's himself. He may not have super powers like many others but he took an oath to be powerful in some shape or form and that's where it became a blessing and a curse at the same time. He has a few weapons at his arsenal and has the ability to fight like a ninja but that doesn't make up for the one power he has over others and that's his mind and that's where he's most dangerous.

If you want to become a real life Avenger, the very first thing you must practice is avenging yourself. In that sense you learn to fight to become strong and powerful and take a chance on who you were and what you want to become. There's still the real you inside but you can amplify it and build a foundation of who you want to be both internal and external. Ever since you were a kid some way or another you dreamed about being strong and triumphing over evil and rescuing the damsel in distress. You can make those dreams come true if you learn to use the right resources. Strength is not always in the muscles but in your heart and soul.

All of us have been weak at some point in our lives whether physically, mentally, emotionally or all the above. It's harder getting in shape to become the very thing we dared dream about but if you learn to value that challenge, you become much stronger then you would physically. A strongman who has known power all his life can lose that sense of value and use it against others. Some of them do and some don't but you get the idea. A weak man however wants that strength and will do whatever it takes to get there and learns the value of that strength yet some will go to great lengths that aren't natural and very few take the journey to become powerful by will and hard work. If you are strong, don't bully those that are weak and more vulnerable, help him/her gain confidence and help them become strong like you did when you were in that state.

When it comes to natural strength and getting strong, you can move weights around if you want and do cool and awkward bodyweight exercises but if you want to develop strength in ways those other things can't touch then you got to go with nature's weights...Rocks, stones and logs. Nothing is more pleasing to the eye then moving a heavy boulder or lifting a heavy log. Yes Olympic Weightlifting and Powerlifting are awesome to watch but remember, the weights are already numbered and set. You can never always tell the size and weight of a big rock or huge looking log, they could be 50 lbs. or 500 lbs. you can't always tell but when you have the ability to lift it, it just makes everything that much sweeter then cherry pie.

Thor's Hammer is a symbol of strength, power and a warrior's spirit. What if you can have that all that and more in your very own hands? How would you use it in your strength training? What strength can you build with that kind of hammer? I will tell you first hand that if you had a hammer like that, you don't look at it as just a cool looking tool or just swing it around and get strong, you make it more then a hammer, you make it more then just steel, you make it the very powerful tool it was mean't for. The hammer is your personal weapon for your quest to be strong, it is in your arsenal of things that are more powerful then anything else. You become more then yourself, you become that hammer, you alone can only bring that hammer to life.

If you can build a body that you always dream about, then you can help those who don't know how to get there. Being strong has its benefits individually but going beyond who you are to help those become strong, that makes you more then just a physical presence, you're a symbol of what's good and hopeful in this world. Those who bully that are weak don't have any real sense of pride or goodness in them, just ignorant pricks that rather care for themselves then be there for those that need it. A real strongman becomes strong both physically and helping those get there as well. Being something more then yourself and losing that selfish pride is a real sign that you are a man of strength.